Earl Shaffer, First to Hike Length of Appalachian Trail in Both Directions, Dies at 83

Earl Shaffer, who put one foot in front of another about five million times to become the first person to hike the Appalachian Trail in one trek, and then was first to do it in the opposite direction, north to south, died on May 5 at a hospital in Lebanon, Pa. He was 83.

The cause was liver cancer, his brother John said.

A bachelor, Earl Shaffer lived most of his life with his cats and goats in a log cabin on a farm in Idaville, Pa., about five miles from the Appalachian Trail. He got electricity two years ago, but never had running water or a refrigerator.

Since January, as his health declined, he lived with his brother John in West Manchester Township, Pa.

In a way, Mr. Shaffer saved his most impressive achievement for last. Four years ago, on the 50th anniversary of his first hike, he once again hiked the trail -- which had grown around 100 miles, to 2,158 miles -- making better time than some people a third his age. He was two months shy of 80 at trail's end.

''I just like to walk in the woods and sleep on mountaintops,'' he said.

Mr. Shaffer, who selected the nickname Crazy One, was a throwback to an age of hiking before high-tech fabrics, featherweight packs and cellular phones. He wore long trousers, a flannel shirt and a pith helmet with mosquito net. He carried a rucksack from World War II.

He wore no socks because he got fewer blisters without them. He carried no sleeping mat, tent or stove, because of their weight.

In his back pocket was a notebook for writing notes for his beloved poems. A typical notation: ''An eagle went by riding the wind.''

Earl Victor Shaffer was born on Nov. 8, 1918. His mother, who died when he was in his midteens, encouraged his interest in literature. His father, a welder, found time to paint watercolors and make violins.

After graduating from high school in the depths of the Depression, Mr. Shaffer could not find a steady job. He worked on nearby farms, trapped for furs in the winter and picked up carpentry jobs. Tired of waiting to be drafted, he joined the Army in early 1941 and served with the Army Signal Corps, setting up radar equipment in the South Pacific.

In 1947, he was back home, sitting around the kitchen table with his family. He mentioned a magazine article that said although six or seven people had walked the length of the Appalachian Trail in separate hikes, it might be too much for a single trek.

''If you told him something couldn't be done, he'd try to figure out a way to do it,'' John Shaffer said.

Earl Shaffer had another, deeper motivation. He and a childhood friend, Walter Winemiller, had talked about hiking the trail, which was completed in 1937. Mr. Winemiller died in the invasion of Iwo Jima.

Mr. Shaffer, who admitted feeling directionless after the war, put it simply. He said he wanted to ''walk the Army out of my system.''

In preparation for the hike, Mr. Shaffer did exercises based in part on jujitsu training. But in a way, his preparation was lifelong. He never smoked or drank, and never visited a doctor from the time he left the service until he made his 1998 hike. He believed in the restorative powers of things like blackstrap molasses, green tea and a daily tablespoon of vinegar.

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On April 4, 1948, he started at what was then the trail's southern terminus, Mount Oglethorpe in Georgia. On his first day, a picnicker asked him where he was going, The Chicago Tribune reported. He said Maine.

''I'm glad I got sense,'' she said.

Mr. Shaffer soon mailed his tent home, after deciding that his poncho could double as a shelter. He cooked oatmeal and baked bread over a fire.

He mislaid the maps he had ordered and had to rely on compass, logic and instinct to find his way. The trail was in bad condition because repairs had been curtailed during the war. When he lost the trail, he would bushwhack through the brush.

It took him 124 days to reach Mount Katahdin in Maine, the northern end of the trail, averaging 16.5 miles a day.

''It was inevitable that someone would someday make a continuous through hike, but Earl Shaffer was the one who had the fortitude and imagination to do it first,'' James R. Hare wrote in ''Hiking the Appalachian Trail.''

In 1965, Mr. Shaffer decided to do the hike in the other direction, starting at Mount Katahdin and ending at Springer Mountain in Georgia. At 46, he felt chipper.

''That's when a man's really at the peak of his powers, mental, and physical and in experience in life, to do something like this and enjoy it,'' he said in a 1998 interview with The Valley News in Lebanon, N.H.

He cut 25 days off his previous time, but described the walk as grueling, partly because of the three-mile-an-hour pace he set. It was also less enjoyable to chase autumn as it moved south than to chase spring in the opposite direction. Fewer birds interrupted the silence and blooming flowers were rare. The only advantage was fewer insects.

Back home at his farm in Pennsylvania, surrounded by blackberry bushes and orchards, he was a carpenter, beekeeper, auction clerk and junk and antiques dealer. He kept three battered Volkswagen buses in his barn to feed the parts appetite of a fourth. He loved to play his guitar and sing folk songs.

When he hit upon the idea for his 50th-anniversary hike, his brothers John and Daniel told him no. Then John went on an overnight hike with Earl, who proved to be quite strong. When he shocked everyone by agreeing to visit a doctor, and then passed his physical, there was no holding him back.

In addition to John and Daniel, of York, Pa., he is survived by a third brother, the Rev. Evan Shaffer, of Greensville, S.C.; and a sister, Anna Shaffer Miller of York.

Mr. Shaffer's 1998 walk was covered on national television and radio broadcasts and in many newspapers, not least because he complained that the trail had been made too hard over the years. He preferred it when it followed more roads and fewer mountain ridges.

He finished in 173 days.

''I'm mighty, mighty glad it's over,'' he said. ''If I had another week I would fall on my face.''

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A version of this obituary; biography appears in print on May 12, 2002, on Page 1001033 of the National edition with the headline: Earl Shaffer, First to Hike Length of Appalachian Trail in Both Directions, Dies at 83. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe